ReputationDefender

In this time of terrible need for our fellow world citizens in Haiti, please join me in supporting relief organizations such as the Red Cross by giving at http://www.redcross.org/ or by texting “Haiti” to
90999 (to give $10).  I made a personal donation this morning online to the Red Cross International Response Fund.  Please join me.

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Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia fame and Andrea Weckerle of CiviliNation had an excellent op-ed in the WSJ right before the new year. In it, they call for a more civil online dialogue, making the important point that vicious online attacks can too often silence discussion rather than advance or broaden it. There is always room in a free society for vigorous dialogue and debate. But when one party is attacked–often, online, anonymously–into silence, we can lose the value of the conversation and disagreement.

Some will no doubt respond to Wales and Weckerle with the opinion that their way forward would result in a chilling of speech; change the law or mores online even a smidgeon, the argument would go, and the immediate and necessary result is Stalinism– an icicle where there used to be free speech. The argument goes that anything other than the status quo is censorship. Not true.

Too often, online attacks yield a kind of “life censorship,” in which people are afraid to go about their lives, attend class, go on dates, apply for jobs, participate in online discourse, because they have been victimized on the Internet. In the words of Wales and Weckerle, from the op-ed:

“The Internet is bringing about a revolution in human knowledge and communication, and we have an unprecedented opportunity to make the global conversation more reasonable and productive. But we can only do so if we prevent the worst among us from silencing the best among us with hostility and incivility.”

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This article by Adam Liptak of the New York Times notes that Supreme Court clerks have been going into politically-oriented jobs, including politicized law firms and academic institutions that increasingly match the inclinations of their hiring Justices.

We are proud at ReputationDefender to have hired Dave Thompson, who just finished his clerkship for Justice Scalia. We think we are the first startup ever to have won a SCOTUS clerk right out of his or her clerkship. Perhaps the authors of the study will take another look at how hiring is trending after all…..

Michael

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Google is again in discussion to buy Yelp.  See this piece by Claire Cain Miller in today’s New York Times.

The GOOG can no longer position itself as a disinterested observer of information.  Its ownership of blogging technology, its interest in reviews, and its increasing appetite for a broadened footprint in what we can call the Opinions Industry confirm that Google owns content like a regular Old Media media company.  It’s not just an observer or lens business any more.  The public imagination might still envision Google as a search engine or aggregator.  But Google is an Owner, not
an Observer.

On the legal side, all of this helps explain why Google has been so adamant about forbidding any change to the CDA 230: if Google owns the stuff (which it does), its fear of liability must be accentuated.

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Ten privacy groups are filing a complaint against Facebook for possible violation of federal laws in light of the recent changes to their privacy policies (which this blog has previously covered here and here.)

Check out this article from the WSJ: http://bit.ly/5IbZAB

Back in the day, MySpace was the main target of law enforcement and interest, when fears of predatory stalking abounded.  Facebook was contrasted with MySpace at the time as the more responsible player.  MySpace later cleaned up its act, and Facebook has meanwhile eclipsed MySpace in size.  Is Facebook now the main subject of interest due to size or due to its recent privacy-related decisions?

At any rate, privacy controls don’t work.  That’s the news.

Michael

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